. Philip baptised, prevailed with her subjects to quit the worship
of idols, and profess the faith of Jesus Christ. This opinion appears to
me without any better foundation than another of the conversion of the
Abyssins to the Jewish rites by the Queen of Sheba, at her return from
the court of Solomon. They, however, who patronise these traditions give
us very specious accounts of the zeal and piety of the Abyssins at their
first conversion. Many, they say, abandoned all the pleasures and
vanities of life for solitude and religious austerities; others devoted
themselves to God in an ecclesiastical life; they who could not do these
set apart their revenues for building churches, endowing chapels, and
founding monasteries, and spent their wealth in costly ornaments for the
churches and vessels for the altars. It is true that this people has a
natural disposition to goodness; they are very liberal of their alms,
they much frequent their churches, and are very studious to adorn them;
they practise fasting and other mortifications, and notwithstanding their
separation from the Roman Church, and the corruptions which have crept
into their faith, yet retain in a great measure the devout fervour of the
primitive Christians. There never were greater hopes of uniting this
people to the Church of Rome, which their adherence to the Eutichian
heresy has made very difficult, than in the time of Sultan Segued, who
called us into his dominions in the year 1625, from whence we were
expelled in 1634. As I have lived a long time in this country, and borne
a share in all that has passed, I will present the reader with a short
account of what I have observed, and of the revolution which forced us to
abandon AEthiopia, and destroyed all our hopes of reuniting this kingdom
with the Roman Church.

The empire of Abyssinia hath been one of the largest which history gives
us an account of: it extended formerly from the Red Sea to the kingdom of
Congo, and from Egypt to the Indian Sea. It is not long since it
contained forty provinces; but is now not much bigger than all Spain, and
consists but of five kingdoms and six provinces, of which part is
entirely subject to the Emperor, and part only pays him some tribute, or
acknowledgment of dependence, either voluntarily or by compulsion. Some
of these are of very large extent: the kingdoms of Tigre, Bagameder, and
Goiama are as big as Portugal, or bigger; Amhara and Damote are something
less.